In theory it should be easy to get to the bottom of this. Bryan G. Wallace in his 'Farce of Physics' (chapter 4) notes:

At the December 1974 AAS Dynamical Astronomy Meeting, E. M. Standish Jr of JPL reported that significant unexplained systematic variations existed in all the interplanetary data, and that they are forced to use empirical correction factors that have no theoretical foundation.

So who's lying - Bryan Wallace or E. Myles Standish?

How many minor plants/moons/large asteroids have been discovered since 1974?

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"The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important."

How many minor plants/moons/large asteroids have been discovered since 1974?

That happens to come from those "All science is wrong" hogwash websites that tends t misrepresent what was said. In that case, the misunderstanding comes from the fact that an inadequate amount of factors had been considered, and thus corrections needed to be included. If you look up his lifes work, you will find that all those "corrections" lead to the discovery of various gravitational effects that were not yet well understood. Everything from tidal effects to the gravity of black matter, etc. It didn't disprove SRT, it was just incomplete at the time. What he said was right, based on the then theoretical understanding, there was no way to explain the effects. Not having enough variables in a model doesn't disprove an entire mathematical or theoretical framework.

I may have been hit by some Muons, I have been losing weight lately.

I think the valid point here was my original point, Science doesn't disprove things from null results. Its an elementary mistake, no Phd physicist would ever do that, and those of us that know better ignore the ramblings of people who try do that.

I don't think they ever disproved the ether theory per sť, only what happened was that the experiment designed to prove the existence of an ether wind, came up with nothing.
Which would suggest that either Earth is at rest relative to the ether, which was previously thought to be dis-proven, and it also violates the Copernican Paradigm, or that something else was happening.

The Lorentz theory was a way to try and explain the result, but had no basis whatsoever.

Now you tell me what is the most likely answer? That the ether exists but due to some strange effect the MMX had a null result? An experiment that had 20x the needed resolution? (The difference in speed between earth moving one way and moving the other is 40 miles per second, and the experiment was sensitive enough to detect discrepancies of two M/s)

I am glad Einstein was wrong, otherwise various countries on earth would have thousands of horrific weapons called "nuclear bombs"

There may be more than one model of reality that allows to produce the same KaBoom!

Quote:

Originally Posted by pjpoes

Mine took me off a bridge.

It depends on a brand of GPS, according to my observations. Garmin never suggested me to go off Bay Bridge even when traffic stops completely, while Magellan always does that. Why? The answer is simple: Magellan was a sailor. Do you know who was Garmin? I don't know, but I suspect he did not ride his horse through oceans.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mace1337

I don't think they ever disproved the ether theory per sť, only what happened was that the experiment designed to prove the existence of an ether wind, came up with nothing.

What an experiment with observation of particles that go through the slot demonstrates? Right, that particles change their behaviour as soon as the way to observe it exists. Why other experiments that show "nothing" can be different?

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Nothing in the universe is perfect. The ideal things are the ones that are most optimal. Optimization criteria, what matters. When I hear "No Compromise Design", I want to take a sledgehammer and test how impact-proof it is.

What an experiment with observation of particles that go through the slot demonstrates? Right, that particles change their behaviour as soon as the way to observe it exists. Why other experiments that show "nothing" can be different?

What do you mean by this exactly?

In this case viewing the interference pattern collapses the wave-particle duality and light acts as a wave. Any shift in that interference pattern would suggest ether wind slowing down the light. This effect was not observed, that's what I mean by coming up with "nothing" (null result).

In this case viewing the interference pattern collapses the wave-particle duality and light acts as a wave. Any shift in that interference pattern would suggest ether wind slowing down the light. This effect was not observed, that's what I mean by coming up with "nothing" (null result).

I mean, if the fact of potential observation has to be considered as the variable factor in the experiment coming up with "nothing" means undetermined result. Period.

Edit: At least, "In presence of potential observation, ..." has to be added to the conclusion.

__________________
Nothing in the universe is perfect. The ideal things are the ones that are most optimal. Optimization criteria, what matters. When I hear "No Compromise Design", I want to take a sledgehammer and test how impact-proof it is.

I mean, if the fact of potential observation has to be considered as the variable factor in the experiment coming up with "nothing" means undetermined result. Period.

Edit: At least, "In presence of potential observation, ..." has to be added to the conclusion.

Okay, so you mean that if there is a possibility that the experiment can be observed in two different ways given a different means of detecting (wave interferometer or particle detector) then the experiment is not valid because it could have different results if you observe the light as particles instead of as a wave?

Okay, so you mean that if there is a possibility that the experiment can be observed in two different ways given a different means of detecting (wave interferometer or particle detector) then the experiment is not valid because it could have different results if you observe the light as particles instead of as a wave?

No. I mean, the conclusion has to be rephrased: instead of "There is no ether impact", it should be, "In case of possibility of observation ether impact did not show".

__________________
Nothing in the universe is perfect. The ideal things are the ones that are most optimal. Optimization criteria, what matters. When I hear "No Compromise Design", I want to take a sledgehammer and test how impact-proof it is.

I stumbled into a copy of "The Einstein Myth And The Ives Papers" at the local library years ago. What an eye opener! I highly recommend it. The best book on non-Einsteinien physics is "Einstein Plus Two" by Petr Beckmann(out of print but worth a look).

Some other points:
<rant>
1. There is no mass increase with velocity.
2. There is no length contraction with increasing velocity.
3. Ther is no 'time dilation'.
4. We're no closer to a physical understanding of matter than we were 100 years ago
Modern physics has become largely irrelevant today.
Electrical engineering is still in the stone age, and will stay there until Maxwell's original equations are restored. </rant>

I have copies of The Einstein Myth And The Ives Papers, Petr Beckman's book Einstein Plus 2, Relativity is Dead, Challanging Modern Physics by Al Kelly and a couple of other books.
Some more literature: Relativity skeptics and aether proponents

I believe in mass, length (ie. Lorentz contraction) and time (ie. time dilation) transformations, but also believe there must be a prefered electromagnetic frame of reference, ie. the aether, because of the twin paradox arguments. I also believe light bends in a gravitation field, the speed of light is slower and atomic clocks run slower at lower gravitational potentials, but believe its due to the properties of the aether varying with gravitational potential (Eric Baird calls it an aether density gradient) instead of curved space (general relativity).

Also, look up stellar (Bradley) aberration. Einstein fanatics believe it happens as a result of relative motion between a star and the earth, but when experiments are done with binary stars it appears to show that the earth is moving through a transmitting medium of light, because the tilt of the telescope depends completely on the motion of the earth (ie. the motion of the earth relative to the transmitting medium of light).